The Rec Center #217
This week we’ve got an article about Spotify fandom, some essential Tumblr coverage, excellent Tessa Thompson fanart, the second part of our femslash A/B/O primer, and more! — Gav
new stuff
“What Do Those Spotify ‘Top Fans’ Messages Mean?” by Jonah Engel Bromwich at The New York Times
“A new marketing message tells people they are big fans of certain artists. But why?”
“Fanfiction Rising” by Lisa Marshall at The Coloradan
A great interview with information science professor Casey Fiesler, whose work we’ve featured here before, and PhD student Brianna Dym about fanfiction and the research she and others do on it.
“BTS’s Growing Fanbase Isn’t Just Teens, It’s Their Moms” by P. Claire Dodson at InStyle
We are ALWAYS here for profiles of fans in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond! This is a lovely one about a group called “Bangtan Moms & Noonas.”
“The Ever-Mutating Life of Tumblr Dot Com” by Allegra Rosenberg at Fansplaining
Elizabeth was *very* excited to edit this piece about Tumblr in 2020—where “reports of the platform’s death have been greatly exaggerated.”
older stuff
“C.S. Lewis’s Greatest Fiction Was Convincing American Kids That They Would Like Turkish Delight” by Jess Zimmerman at Atlas Obscura
An entertaining look at an enduring meme, interviewing Narnia fans about what they thought Turkish Delight was like when they read the books as kids.
tumblr & beyond
Tessa Thompson as Aphrodite fanart by Marika_Writes_.
When will this mature & sophisticated Redditor get the gritty Pokemon reboot he craves?
Cute Reading Rainbow/Geordi fanart reposted by LeVar Burton!
“THE FILMS AREN’T CANON”
Please enjoy this educational children’s book about fanfic.
fanfiction
queersintherain loves cats and rainy days and is working on getting back to that writing thing! She can be found on tumblr and ao3.
This is the second of two lists exploring the small yet mighty tradition of A/B/O in f/f fandom!
A quick refresher: A/B/O is a fandom-built universe based on a (very wrong) understanding of wolf pack hierarchy. Alphas = strong, masculine, make babies; omegas = feminized, have babies. Add in a helping of involuntary sexual arousal with alphas having ruts and omegas having heats for some fun (and sometimes not fun) forced proximity situations.
The last list was one history of how A/B/O, a trope popularized and most often seen in m/m came to f/f, and this week’s list is some more recs for queer A/B/O in f/f—fics that use the A/B/O system to comment on and queer existing gender and sexuality hierarchies. There’s a bit of a Supergirl (TV) focus, because that’s my main fandom, but we have some wonderful A/B/O writers, so that sort of works out!
(To repeat the note from last time just in case: f/f A/B/O often involves female alphas having dicks or dick-like organs, sometimes referred to as cocks or knots. I find this sensitively done by all of the authors on this list (it is a factor in all of these fics in particular), but your mileage may vary.)
“2019 Kink Meme Fills, chapter 1” by Alsike. 8.3K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Supergirl (TV); Ship: Alex Danvers/Kara Danvers
Backstory: Kara Zor-El fell to Earth when she was a preteen and was taken in by the Danvers family, scientists who worked with Superman and had a young daughter of their own, Alex. Canonically, Alex and Kara are foster siblings who start out hostile when they first meet as teens and are incredibly devoted to each other by the time they’re adults (we’re talking multiple “I will sacrifice my life for you” attempts). In fic, this devotion can go in multiple other directions.
Rec: Alex goes into rut for the first time when she’s home “sick”, and Kara helps. This fic gives me so many feels. The cool thing it does in an A/B/O sense is that Kara is an alien, not an alpha, beta or an omega, so her parts are a little different (alien genitalia!) but also, because of this there’s some really excellent exploration from Alex’s (alpha) POV about how the world works, and traditional alphalinity, and how by spending her rut with Kara she is stepping outside of that because Kara is outside of this system.
Content warnings: underage (high school), some A/B/O-typical consent issues but they both clearly wanted to do this before too
“A Cord of Three Strands” by bad_pheasants. 4.7K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Supergirl (TV); Ship: Alex Danvers/Kara Danvers/Lucy Lane
Backstory: Same backstory as above re: Alex and Kara. Lucy Lane is an army major and a lawyer, and none of that is really relevant to this fic, it’s just Alex, Kara and Lucy dating, and a scene from this relationship!
Rec: This is poly smut, and it’s delightful! It has a poly dynamic where everyone is very much equals, with hints of the omega in the mix (Alex) being in control, and the fun queer feature of one female alpha knotting the other, which in this verse isn’t supposed to be possible. Also, alpha/alpha as a way to talk about internalized homophobia!
Content warnings: N/A
“Late Bloomer” by Cantankerous. 2K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Terminator: Dark Fate; Ship: Grace/Dani
Backstory: In the latest Terminator movie, Grace is an augmented soldier from the future sent back in time to protect Dani from the Terminators trying to kill her--in the future Dani is Grace’s commander and also the leader of the resistance (/quasi-mother figure? But some folks read that as just a no-homo from the movies). In this fic, set in the future (and pre-time travel), Grace, who has always assumed she was a beta, goes into rut for the first time and is quarantined.
Rec: Confident, older omega helping young panicking alpha who isn’t sure what to do. A lovely fic, and a nice inversion of the usual genera roles! (Also there are two other connected fics, one by the same author and another by a different author that this fic was inspired by, and they’re great too!)
Content warnings: A/B/O-typical consent issues
“A lack of careful consideration” by outlier. 5K words, rated Explicit.
Fandom: Supergirl (TV): Ship: Astra/Maggie Sawyer
Backstory: Astra is a Kryptonian General who’s only in s1, Maggie Sawyer is a detective who’s only in s2/3. This is one of those lovely ships between two characters who have never met in canon, so no other context is needed! In this AU, to pull from the fic’s summary, “Maggie’s let her rut go for too long, and now she needs to burn it off. Either a fuck or a fight will do.”
Rec: A wonderful fic that uses A/B/O to explore alpha/alpha dynamics, which here read as gay (same-genera attraction and all) in a sort of masc/masc way. Also, there is gymware and competitive sex!
Content warnings: A/B/O-typical consent issues
All of these authors also have other wonderful A/B/O fics, some of them excellent smut and some of them longer and more plotty too, so if you’re looking for more of the same, please go check out the rest of their stuff!
FINAL THOUGHT
One final plug for FANDOM TRUMPS HATE, the charity fanworks auction running right now, because bidding closes tonight! Friday February 28th at 8 pm EST!
In case you keep tuning out whenever anyone mentions this thing, a very brief explainer:
A few weeks back, people offered up their services for creating/helping to create fanworks. Check out all the offerings here, nicely tagged and arranged! They might include your favorite fic writer or artist, someone offering Britpicking or betaing, someone making physical crafts, or, say, getting DestinationToast to do some fandom stats for you!
A tip: check out the “golden needle” tag for creators who haven’t received any bids yet. (You can even put small bids on a bunch of creators rather than a big bid on just one.)
If you win your auction, you’ll donate the amount of your bid to one of FTH’s 2020 supported nonprofits (see the full (v good) list here)
The person you bid on will communicate with you and then create a fanwork! Or help you create your own fanwork! And then there will be more fanworks!
And that’s it! Go bid! On all fic writers except the one *I* have put a bid on or I will be forced to engage in a BIDDING WAR. 😂 — Elizabeth
Have a favorite one-off rec? Please send it our way! We’ll use it in a future list. Other fanworks—comics, vids, zines, etc—are strongly encouraged as well. And if you have any interest in doing an entire rec list, explainer, or ship manifesto, please get in touch! elizabethandgav at gmail dot com.
If you liked this, please share it with your friends! https://thereccenter.substack.com/. And find us on social media: Gav (twitter/tumblr) & Elizabeth (twitter/tumblr)